


blue monday

by softshocks



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Marvel Cinematic Universe AU, black widow!mina, captain!jihyo, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27445444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softshocks/pseuds/softshocks
Summary: When sleep eludes them, Jihyo always finds herself in Mina’s company.She supposes that a good shut-eye is the cost of dedicating your life to keep humanity alive, among other things.
Relationships: Myoui Mina/Park Jisoo | Jihyo, past jeonghyo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Covers pretty much post cap waking up in 2011 until endgame :)
> 
> For sumeulhup! Thanks for the prompt and the opportunity to write for mihyo :D 
> 
> Vote for I can't stop me on the music shows! You can check how to do it on @tw_votingteam on twt :D

The light when she opens her eyes is so bright it burns into the back of her skull. 

Her head feels like it’s being split into two when she tries to blink the blurriness away from her eyes, but she keeps doing it. 

The room is impersonal. Jihyo doesn’t know where she is. At her side table is a glass of water and a radio that plays Nat King Cole’s _Mona Lisa_ softly to fill in the spacious room _._

When she sits up, her bones pop so loudly it should be criminal. 

_God,_ _where am I?_ Jihyo thinks, and even the simple formulation of thoughts hurts a little bit. _How long was I out?_

She doesn’t know where she is. The last thing she remembers is—

_“Don’t be late, okay?” Jeongyeon’s voice is soft but tight with tears over the comms unit. It’s the only solace she finds as the harsh air resisting the warplane in its violent descent. “We still have to dance.”_

_Jihyo laughs, even if her cheeks are wet. The ice gets closer and the meters on the dashboard grow more erratic than ever. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world_ —”

_Then the plane breaks through the ice. Then it’s freezing cold. Then there’s nothing._

Sharp pain zaps through Jihyo’s head, and there are tears in her eyes. “Jeongyeon,” she cries to herself. _Jeongyeon, I’m alive._

The door opens, and Jihyo’s head snaps up to a nurse, holding a tray. She’s dressed in the official Allied forces uniform, but Jihyo holds her ground. For all she knew she could be in Hydra’s custody. 

When the nurse approaches her, somewhat cautiously, Jihyo searches for a possible weapon. The lady sets it down in front of her, and Jihyo looks at her. 

“What year is it?” Jihyo asks, her voice scratching against her throat. 

“1945, Captain,” the nurse says, moving to stand. Their eyes barely meet. 

Something is wrong.

She’s lying. 

“Don’t lie to me,” Jihyo says, her patience wearing thin. If this was Hydra, they were doing such a terrible job. “I said. What year is it?” 

The poor nurse blanches. “Uh…”

Before she can ask again, the door swings open to a woman clad in black, a patch on her left eye. She’s small, but her build is intimidating, and her clothes are definitely not from 1945. “Captain Park Jihyo,” she says, nodding to the nurse to leave them. “I’ll take it from here. Thank you.” 

When the door shuts closed once more, Jihyo looks up at the woman, who promptly introduces herself. “I’m Kim Bora. Head of SHIELD.” She smiles, but only slightly. “You’re on home turf, don’t worry.” 

Jihyo asks the same question again. “What year is it?”

Bora pauses before looking Jihyo dead in the eye. “It’s 2011, Captain.” 

-

Now Jihyo had faced supposedly scarier things in her life. She punched Nazis in the face, personally saw to the demise of the Red Skull. The war had brought on so much terror.

She will, however, argue that the 21st century is an entirely different kind of horror no amount of training could have prepared her for. Everything was pretty much on demand. Life moved too quickly. How were there so many pocket cell phones? Don’t even get her started on memes. 

Of course, there were sessions with SHIELD to integrate her back into the 21st century, with the tech and all but it’s just not hitting the spot the way she wants it to. So much slang flies above her head. Cultural references that were apparently very significant were barely recognizable to her. 

Jihyo doesn’t know where to start and it’s ridiculous that she’s literally Captain America but she’s too goddamn shy to ask someone for help - like a list, maybe, of cult classics. Things to watch. Listen to. Read. 

(She also doesn’t ask because Jihyo anticipates the list to be overwhelmingly long.) 

-

They tell her Jeongyeon is alive and somehow the world is so much brighter than before. 

(She, however, has a few moments in the bathroom to cry when she visits for the first time.) 

In between integrating into the 21st century and retraining, Jihyo tries to visit her at the home for the elderly as much as she can with Jeongyeon’s favorite flowers in tow. 

“How are you holding up?” Jeongyeon asks, her voice breaking. They’d celebrated her 90th birthday a few days ago. “Bora givin’ you a hard time?” 

Jihyo laughs, arranging the flowers on the bedside table. Bora was tough but it got her back into shape. “Nothing I hadn’t seen before,” she says, then looks at Jeongyeon. She still looks as beautiful as she did when she was 25. “Can’t say the same about the whole adjusting thing. Has the world moved this fast before?” 

Jeongyeon laughs. “You get used to it. Funny to see you struggle a bit, though.” 

“Shut up!”

They laugh and then the now-familiar glassy look is back. Jeongyeon, with the same light brown eyes, looks up at her. Then she starts tearing up. “Jihyo,” she says, like she always does when this happens. Her Alzheimer’s has gotten worse over the years, they told her. “You’re alive…”

Jihyo stops what she’s doing to sit beside Jeongyeon and to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. “Yes,” she says, even if it doesn’t feel true sometimes. “Yes, I’m alive.” 

-

Sometimes it’s lonely at SHIELD despite the greetings at the hallway and some of the people asking her to lunch very stiffly. 

Sometimes being Captain America was hard to shake off. She just wanted to be _Park Jihyo_ most times. 

Bora did see her as just _Park Jihyo_ , but she was too busy and too important to even be in one place all the time.

She missed Tzuyu. It would be easier with her. Jihyo never really recovered from losing her and maybe a part of her will always blame herself for not catching her fast enough. Not getting to her in time to pull her up back onto the tram.

It was lonely at SHIELD until she runs into her. Striking red hair, unreadable face. Her kevlar suit stood out from the standard uniform. Jihyo walks past her and she knows she’s staring, but the stranger only spares her a glance before she looks away, set straight towards the briefing room, where people head for post-mission briefings. 

That’s where Jihyo is headed since that’s where Bora is, and she needed some files. She and the stranger wait in earth-shattering silence in front of the door before it slides open, letting them in. 

Bora greets them with a loud, “Cap, Widow, just the people I need to see,” She says, handing both Jihyo and the stranger - _Widow_ \- the things they needed. “I’m not sure if you’ve been acquainted but Captain Park Jihyo, meet our Black Widow Myoui Mina.”

Mina gives her a stiff nod and Jihyo returns it, averting her eyes. There’s nothing more to say so Jihyo turns to take her leave with the files that Bora had given her. 

_Black Widow, huh?_ Jihyo thinks, lying on her government-issued bed. She sits up to get the tablet they’d given her (and she’d promptly learned how to use, thank you very much) to pull up a quick search which still amazes her no matter how many times she tries. 

The woman’s profile comes up on the member database available to her clearance. 

_Myoui Mina_

_Age: 26 (est.)_

_Blood Type: A_

_Gender: F_

_Nationality: Japanese, American, Russian_

_Affiliations: Red Room (formerly), KGB (formerly), SHIELD (since 2004)_

_Status: Alive_

_Skill Set: Hand-to-hand combat, intimidation, intelligence handling, long-term and short-term undercover surveillance, languages_

That’s all Jihyo gets, because when she scrolls down she’s met with _Confidential: Not enough clearance to view._

Jihyo lies back down, tucking the tablet away. They were… pretty much the same age, with the whole ‘being in cryostasis’ thing, and Jihyo hopes they can be at least friends or partners for future missions.

-

Jihyo fiddles with the electric stove in the pantry and is making too many sounds at one-thirty in the morning. 

The blasted thing is so hard to operate. She just wants some tea that can maybe make the nightmares a bit more bearable, at least for tonight. Maybe some lighthearted Great British Bake Off, which she watched upon Bora and her partner, Agent Minji’s insistence, can make things better. 

(“It’s a crucial part of the 21st century,” Bora tells her and Jihyo believes her. 

She’s right anyway.) 

When she’s about to give up, someone speaks from the doorway. 

“Need some help?”

Jihyo looks back to find Black Widow—Mina—standing there, a gym bag slung over her shoulders. She’s wearing a sports bra and gym leggings and Jihyo looks back down at the kettle on the electric stove, a blush crawling up her cheeks. “Unfortunately. Haven’t gotten the hang of this thing just yet.” 

Widow pads over, gently setting her bag on the floor to assist her. With one press of a button, the stove starts working. “There.” 

The silence is so thick and Jihyo thinks it might be because neither of them really knows how to hold a normal conversation. Jihyo doesn’t — not recently anyway. 

Determined, Jihyo tries. “Can’t sleep too?” 

Widow only smiles. “Unfortunately,” she repeats Jihyo’s words. “What about you, Captain?” 

“Yeah, thus the, you know,” she points to the kettle boiling on the stove. “Also I’m… I’m just Jihyo in here.” 

Maybe it’s dark but it’s the first time she sees Mina’s lips lift up in a smile. “If that’s the case, it’s just Mina in here too.” She looks at the tv, a bright light in the dimly lit pantry. “Bake Off?” 

It takes a beat before Jihyo realizes she came here to unwind some. “Oh? Oh yeah. Love it.”

Mina nods, taking her mug from the shelf. “Ditto. I prefer British television more than American. But American media has its charms.” 

Jihyo laughs. “I’m not sure if I can tell the difference just yet but I’ll let you know.” The mug Mina is holding is so interesting to look at. “If… if you have recommendations, I’d appreciate it.” 

The other woman pauses, then bends down to brandish a pen and paper. She doesn’t sit when she scribbles on it quickly, and it takes a few minutes until the first page of the paper is full. Then Mina hands it over to Jihyo, who looks at her incredibly legible handwriting with awe. 

“Those are all the proclaimed ‘cult classics’ you may have missed, and some personal favorites from all over the world. It’s in our catalog, I’m sure.” She says, pocketing the pen. “Personally, there’s much more to catch up on with the music. Good luck with that.”

She’s right. Jihyo had recently started with the top 100 hits of each decade she’d been in cryostasis, and so far, she’d loved new wave and the British Invasion bands. She can’t imagine the myriad of songs waiting to be discovered.

It excites as much as it overwhelms. 

“Oh, thanks,” is all Jihyo can say and Mina is picking up her bag already to leave, her mug in her hand. She wants to ask about the music. “I’ll see you around.” 

Mina gives her a lazy but still somewhat elegant salute. 

-

Jihyo burns through that list pretty quickly, it should be embarrassing. Some cult classics were not her favorites but she did love the musicals and Mina’s personal favorites. She didn’t doubt her taste one bit. 

-

“Now that you’re ready for the mission,” Bora says, spinning in her chair. She’d grown less and less intimidating when it wasn’t a matter of field work. “How are you adjusting?” 

Underneath all of the director’s tough demeanor, Jihyo felt like she was under her care. She tries to remind herself that it’s a job, this is a job, but she can’t help but feel that Bora really did care about her. That she wasn’t expendable. 

It’s appreciated, to say the least. 

“It’s fine,” she says, truthfully. It gets better every day. She tells Jeongyeon such. “Agent Myoui gave me a list to catch up.” 

Bora raises an eyebrow. “Her taste is indisputable.” She looks like she wants to say something else but chooses not to at the last minute. 

All of Mina’s personal favorites — Kon Satoshi, Sofia Coppola, Wong Kar Wai, and so many more — were impeccable. Jihyo can only agree. 

-

Jihyo reclines against the pantry’s couch, resting her legs against the length of it. Even if the super serum repairs her tired and damaged muscles faster than any human being on earth, it didn’t stop her body from aching for at least an hour or so after the adrenaline settles. 

Her first mission went pretty smoothly, as far as first missions after spending 65 years in cryostasis go. It was simple: pick up, protect the target from the growing number of Hydra agents that they’re currently investigating. 

Being with her shield again felt different, but Jihyo’s starting to learn that sometimes different is good. 

Except for the whole paperwork post-mission thing. Jihyo looked at the sets of papers Bora had given to her after for her to fill up. 

(Bora smiles at her apologetically when Jihyo sees the stacks of paper. “We’re trying to automate this whole workflow of post-mission paperwork, so it’d be great if you can bear with us a little bit.”

Jihyo doesn’t know what half those words meant, but it seems as if they’re going to do away with the whole manual process of paperwork. She nods anyway and hopes that day comes quickly.) 

She wants to cross out some titles on Mina’s list, and she’s watching _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ before she gets some more work done. When she switches on the massive television, she’s greeted with news of the one and only Iron Man, Im Nayeon. 

Jihyo notices she’s been taking up so much of the news lately. She can breathe and the media would eat that up. 

Technically speaking, they’re both in SHIELD but she hadn’t had the pleasure to work with her yet. She’s not sure if she wants to in the first place. 

The door slides open and Jihyo looks back to Mina, in casual clothes. They’d seen each other on the helipad after she’d come from her mission with the very person on the screen now. Jihyo waves then turns back to the screen, knowing Mina is going to join her. “I’m afraid to ask how she is because it would be classified information.” It isn’t the first time Mina used that on her.

Mina takes a seat beside her. “I don’t think it’s classified information that she’s egotistical and mostly a pain in the ass.” Jihyo laughs at Mina’s words matched with her deadpan expression. They’re quiet when they watch Iron Man launch into the sky. “She has a good heart. It’s just taking some time to unlearn all that.” 

Jihyo hums, watching Iron Man do loops in the sky before taking out some nukes and launching it back into the sky. “I, for one, have had enough Im Nayeon for a bit,” Mina takes the remote and switches it to their movie catalog. “What are we watching?” 

It becomes a routine and Jihyo likes it a lot. “ _Rocky Horror Picture Show.”_

She thinks she sees Mina smile at her when she loads it up, their post-mission papers forgotten for now.

-

“You found a friend, huh?” 

Jihyo rolls her eyes at Jeongyeon. “It wasn’t hard.” 

She isn’t prepared when Jeongyeon smiles at her with the same kind of fondness. “No, it isn’t hard to be your friend. Not at all.”

-

It’s only a matter of time that she and Mina have a mission together. 

They’re deployed in Hanoi and the tropical humidity is starting to get to her. Despite that, the safehouse is nice and breezy. 

It’s perfect except that there’s only one bed for the two of them. _Sorry,_ Bora sends over through their encrypted messaging platform but knowing her, she really isn't. _All hotels around the hotspot are booked._

Jihyo curses the woman but tries to not be bothered by it.

Mina surely seems like she isn’t. She comes out of the bathroom, freshly showered, in a simple tank top and compression shorts that make her legs look godly. 

That night, Jihyo stays at the farthest edge of the double bed she almost falls off a couple of times.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you my friend, Myoui?” 
> 
> Mina gives her a small smile. “I hope so.”

“So what do you think of the initiative?” 

Mina shrugs. They’re not paying attention to the movie before them. “It’s a ticking time bomb,” she says, looking at Jihyo. She’s worried too - it’s not hard to see. “But there’s work to do.” 

Jihyo can’t help but agree. She and Nayeon are expected to lead this team of ‘supers’ when they can’t even hold a discussion without disagreeing. How can she even begin to make the God of Thunder, a master marksman, and a scientist that can go berserk on command cooperate with each other? All of that with the end of the world looming above their heads? 

Well. They’ve got to try.

-

The entirety of New York is in shambles after it’s over. Nayeon almost hadn’t made it when Mina closed the portal, but she’d gotten through by some twisted miracle. 

“Did we win?” Nayeon asks once her mask slides open. She’s surrounded by Dahyun, landing with Mjolnir at her side. Chaeyoung, without any more arrows to spare. Momo, in her Hulk form, breathing heavily through her nose. There’s blood trickling from her hairline but it’s all dried up already. 

Jihyo looks down at Nayeon. There’s blood from her mouth but she’s smiling. “Yeah. Yeah, we did. For now.” 

“Great!” Nayeon says, too chipper for someone who’d narrowly escaped dying in the loneliness of space. “If you guys help me up, shawarma is on me.” 

Mina’s eyes are on the screen but Jihyo knows she isn’t watching. Neither is she. This tiny routine they have just keeps both of them sane even without saying it, even after probably one of the narrowest fights they’ve had with humanity resting on their shoulders.

“You okay?” 

That snaps Mina out of her reverie. “Oh? Oh, yeah. I’m fine.” 

Jihyo leans back a little bit. “That wasn’t like anything we’ve dealt with before.” 

It wasn’t. They’ve dealt with humans but they’ve never dealt with literal gods and aliens. 

On her side of the couch, Mina sighs. She has her feet on Jihyo’s lap. The space between them has been growing lesser and lesser as time passes, Jihyo notices. “Yeah,” she replies. “I have a bad feeling there’s more to come.” 

She smiles somberly. The nagging feeling has been taking over her stomach since a while ago. Jihyo thought the tesseract had been sealed into the ice for good. 

If the arctic couldn’t hold her in forever, how much more one of the most powerful forces in the universe? 

They don’t say anything anymore until they both part ways for their rooms.

-

The Snickers bar gets stuck before it’s dispensed and if that isn’t the last straw, Mina slips in silently behind her. “You should try to shake it.” 

Jihyo takes her by the shoulders and backs her into the damned thing. The Snickers bar lands with a thud on aluminum. “You should try to explain yourself.” 

Mina looks up into her with painfully calm eyes. “I don’t know anything.” 

“Bora is about to die and you’re still being so damn dodgy,” Jihyo says, her temper flaring. It doesn’t always come out but Bora is hanging on to dear life in the intensive care unit. “I’ll ask you again. What do you know?”

In this room, Jihyo isn’t the one skilled in interrogation but it works. Mina looks away at the mention of Bora. It’s obvious she, too, has been worried sick about the director. 

“Her name is The Winter Soldier,” Mina says and Jihyo loosens her hold. “She’s been under the radar for years as a Hydra hitman. When I was in the KGB she’d been a valuable asset but we never really had a chance to work with each other.” 

“Can you tell me more about her?”

Mina looks in the direction of Bora’s room. “I’ll do my best.” 

When Bora dies, they go into hiding but not without the flash drive that leads them to New Jersey. 

(“Oh god, they’re here,” Mina says quietly, turning away. They’re barely recognizable in their civilian undercover outfits. “Quick. Kiss me.” 

Jihyo blushes. “I-what,” she asks, then sees the Hydra agents they’d seen back on the helicarrier on the opposite escalator. She nods, and Mina just goes in.

It’s a quiet, tight-lipped kiss and Jihyo tries not to think about the way her heart hammers in her ribcage, or the way that this has been her first kiss since 1945. She doesn’t even have time to process that this is the first kiss she shares with Mina, and what this could possibly mean for the feelings in her chest. 

There was a mission at hand. It works, and the Hydra agents look away in discomfort.)

“How do I know I can trust you?” Jihyo asks, her eyes on the road. 

“I don’t know, Jihyo,” Mina says, watching the road roll out. They were just recently branded as fugitives and now SHIELD brands them as targets any agent can and should eliminate because Jihyo refused to share information on Bora’s death, which was her dying wish and Agent Minji’s instruction. Now they were headed to the coordinates in the flash drive Minji gave to them as per Bora’s request. “You’re just going to have to try.” 

She hates that she trusts Mina too much that not trusting her just doesn’t seem to be an option. 

Jihyo lightens the mood a bit. At the morgue, it had been terribly somber seeing Bora’s body. Even Mina had shed a few quiet tears. “Well, if I can’t be trusted, I’ll buy us the next round at the international film festival.” 

Mina laughs at that. She’s been laughing a little bit more around Jihyo and even if doom and betrayal loom above their heads, Jihyo feels it echo inside her ribcage. “I don’t know how to tell you, Cap, but that’s not how bets on betrayals work.” 

“But that’s how friendship works,” Jihyo says, then parks far off now that they’ve reached their destination. “Are you my friend, Myoui?” 

Mina gives her a small smile. “I hope so.”

At the bunker, they learn that SHIELD was infested with Hydra agents. That all this time, almost half of their missions were for Hydra. Jihyo feels sick to her stomach and Mina looks the same too. The flash drive Bora and Minji entrusted to them told them the truth. 

They’d narrowly escape the bunker setting off in self-destruction. On the ride to safety, they’re quiet, unsure of how to process the information that the organization they thought they were bringing an end to use them. 

Jihyo knocks on the door, hoping someone will answer. She’s sure she will, but nothing is for certain now. 

The door slides open to Yoohyeon, looking pleasantly surprised. They’ve had coffee a couple of times after their morning runs that wear Yoohyeon down, trying to keep up with her. “Cap?”

Jihyo gives her a small, embarrassed smile. “I’m really sorry, but we need a place to lay low. I didn’t know who else to go to.” 

“Everyone we used to trust is trying to kill us,” Mina says, beside her. 

Yoohyeon pauses to look at the two of them and steps aside. “Not everyone is. Come on in.” 

When Jihyo steps out of Yoohyeon’s spare room’s bathroom, she finds Mina staring outside the window as she dries her hair. She looks back, her eyes tired. Jihyo has never seen her this way. “Hey.” 

“Hey yourself,” Mina says, giving her a small smile. 

Jihyo sits across her, feeling her short hair drip on her tank top. “You okay?” 

The hands drying her red hair come to a stop, and Mina sighs. “When I deflected to SHIELD I thought I was doing the right thing,” setting down the towel, Mina looks at her. “Turns out I left the bad things I was doing to do even more terrible things, without even knowing it. Sometimes I feel like I wasn’t wired to know what good or bad looks like anymore.” 

Then Mina looks at Jihyo and nothing could have prepared her for that moment when Mina says: “But I look at you and I know that good exists,” her face, open, vulnerable. Nothing like the mask that Black Widow wears and Jihyo feels it echo inside her. 

Jihyo can’t say anything, thickness lining her throat, so she just reaches over and holds Mina’s hand until Yoohyeon calls them for dinner. 

_Those eyes,_ Jihyo thinks distantly, even as a car explodes behind them as they run for their life. The Winter Soldier spots them, her metal arm shining against the sunlight. Her hair is short, cropped, and Jihyo knows that shade of brown. 

“On your left!” Yoohyeon says, pulling Jihyo and Mina away as the gunshots nearly nick them. They hide behind a turned over car on the bridge and Jihyo stands to catch a glance of their assailant. 

Mina had tried to subdue the Winter Soldier but barely managed to make a dent. The soldier has her mask down and - 

_“You know, I could have taken that fella on my own,” Jihyo says, disgruntled. Tzuyu was much taller than her, with a far-better build that the army is looking for._

_“Yeah right, keep telling yourself that,” her friend says. She ruffles Jihyo’s hair._

_Jihyo huddles closer to her, though. She can never stay angry at Tzuyu. “But thanks for saving my sorry behind.”_

Tzuyu. 

At the bunker, it’s Mina who approaches her this time. She sits beside Jihyo, their bodies so close. “A lot of stuff happened today.” 

Jihyo lets out a laugh. “Tell me about it,” she says, sighing. It’s one thing to know Bora’s alive after Minji appeared just in time to get them away from the Winter Soldier, and that there’s actually a plan to sabotage the SHIELD helicarriers and expose Hydra to the public. 

It’s another thing to find out that one of your closest friends was one of the most prominent killers of the KGB, heavily experimented on and most likely brainwashed beyond recognition. Jihyo doesn’t know if she’ll ever recover from that. Jihyo doesn’t know if she’ll ever forgive herself for it. 

Mina purses her lips, but she reaches over and has a hand on Jihyo’s. “We have a job to do, and I can’t promise anything, but we can do our best to get her back.” 

She remembers Tzuyu’s smile. Tzuyu’s face. There was an echo of it in the pure rage and thirst for blood on the Winter Soldier’s face. Jihyo nods, hangs on to that sliver of hope that Mina gives her. 

Jihyo never doubts her, but Bora manages to kill the Hydra mole in the highest of ranks. Bora manages to leak all the information on Hydra to the public, with Mina’s help. She and Yoohyeon try to hold off the Winter Soldier but at one point, Yoohyeon’s wings go awry that sends her to the ground. 

_“I’m good, Cap, don’t worry about me,”_ Yoohyeon says in their comms. _“Just finish the job.”_

On the bridge, Jihyo sets down her shield and holds up her hands. “Hey, don’t you remember me?” She says, even if she feels like crying. “I’m that scrawny kid you used to defend. You never got sick even if I was a feisty little thing.” 

There is light then, a flicker of recognition, but it’s gone as fast as it appears. Tzuyu shakes her head as if she were shaking the memory of Jihyo away. Then she has Jihyo on her back, delivering multiple blows to her face and Jihyo just takes it, tries her best to get her back.

 _“Hey,” Tzuyu says, one time they’re camped at a fireplace in France, trying to reclaim Nazi-occupied areas._ _“You know I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, right?”_

_Jihyo laughs even if she feels it go straight to her heart. “That’s sudden,” she teases because she can’t help it. “But I’m with you, too. Always.”_

The blow to her face hurts, but Jihyo has never been someone who was smart for the people she loves. “I’m with you -” another blow and another. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, Tzuyu.” 

The recognition, this time, stays. 

A distressed Mina buzzes into her comms. _“Cap, get out of there now!”_

The helipad crashes into each other and it’s loud. Then everything is black. 

Her eyes are heavy, but she feels her body repairing itself already. Jihyo cracks an eye open, feels the heavy liquid of her blood keeping her eyes closed, but she looks up to the person dragging her out of the water.   
  
Tzuyu.

Mina slides into the car when Jihyo pulls up in front of one of her many safehouses. “I don’t know why we’re heading to that Armenian film festival when technically no one wins since both of us were tagged as traitors.” 

“I can’t treat a friend to a good night out?” She jokes as Mina slips on her seatbelt. “And you were a traitor but just not to me.” 

Mina only rolls her eyes, and Jihyo pulls out to drive them to the cinema they frequent for a quick bite before the shows start.

-

She and Nayeon have had their differences but it has never been to this extent. Never to the point of dividing the team. The explosion at the UN council had been the nail in the coffin. 

Outside of the cathedral where the king of Wakanda lay, Jihyo stands under the roof as the rain pours around them. 

She hears the telltale clicking of heels behind her, and all these years working with Mina lets her know who came to be with her. 

“Who else signed?” Jihyo asks when Mina stands beside her. 

“Nayeon, myself, Yubin, Handong,” she says, “Chaeyoung doesn’t want to partake in this. Sana hasn’t decided. Dahyun is unreachable in Asgard.” 

When she hears that Mina, too, had signed, she sighs. “You know why I can’t, right?” 

“I know,” she says. “I just… I just think this will keep us together.” 

Jihyo laughs a little, a small, joyless one. “At what cost?” 

That’s when Mina looks away. “Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t always easy.” She has a hand on Jihyo’s shoulder. “There’s more space on that jet to Vienna, if you ever change your mind.” 

“I can’t,” Jihyo repeats. It hurts, but she had a bad feeling about regulating the team or relinquishing their power to bureaucracy. 

Mina had called them a ticking time bomb and she stands by that statement. “I know.” 

“Then why’d you come here?”

Mina starts walking away, giving Jihyo a small smile. “Because you’re my friend, Cap.” 

Jihyo goes rogue. Again.

This time, she has Tzuyu, Yoohyeon, Chaeyoung, and Sana on her side. 

Nayeon has her people, even Mina. She gets a kid named Gahyeon who swings like a spider from one pole to another and Jihyo goes easy on her. 

They need to get on that jet to find more about what Zemo had planned in the first place. When Nayeon’s team had all been held off for some time, they head to the gates to find Mina there. 

“Mina…” Jihyo starts, but Mina doesn’t have any weapons on her. Instead, she gives Jihyo a small smile, tossing her the keys to the jet. “Thank you.”

“Thank me later,” she says, nodding towards the jet. “Now go.” 

Jihyo is so tired of the fighting, and it continues into the night even when they find out that Zemo had framed the Winter Soldier as the mastermind behind the UN explosion. But when Nayeon finds out that it had been the Winter Soldier - not exactly _Tzuyu_ \- behind her parents’ deaths, it sends her into a rage. 

It ends with Tzuyu’s arm detached from her, and Nayeon’s armor being disabled. 

There was no more turning back from this. Jihyo leaves her shield behind and takes the jet to let Tzuyu live in Wakanda while everything settles.

“Thanks for everything,” Tzuyu says, gruffly. She’s been trying really hard to recover and Jihyo smiles. 

“We had a promise.” 

“We did.” 

Then she takes off to return home, knowing nothing will be the same. Jihyo isn’t sure if change was good, nowadays. 

SHIELD is officially closed by the UN because of the power it held and the destruction it caused. It certainly didn’t help that the Hydra debacle worked against it. 

Mina comes forward, revealing her identity to the world. So do Bora and Minji. Jihyo only watches the live hearings. It’s decided that SHIELD will be no more. 

At the Avengers HQ, Mina arrives, tossing her bag on the counter of the kitchen. Jihyo slides her a glass of water she takes. “So there’s one more thing on the viewing list we haven’t watched.” 

Mina looks so tired, but she smiles at Jihyo anyway. It doesn’t meet her eyes. “Which one?” 

“Kill Bill vol. 2.” 

She smiles, slipping off her shoes. They haven’t done this in some time and it looks like Mina needs it more than anything. “Load it up.” 

They’ll have time to talk about everything later. Right now, they just need the quiet and the film as background noise.

-

Nothing could have prepared them for it happening.

After half the universe is wiped away, Jihyo calls Mina’s phone.

When she picks up, Jihyo cries. 

-

To say the past few years have been difficult was an understatement. In her entire life, she hadn’t expected to be alive. And she hadn’t expected to outlive so many people after what Thanos had done after he’d collected all the infinity stones. 

Jihyo tries her best. She joins tiny groups and organizations to help people cope, not as Captain but as just… Jihyo. 

It’s hard. The remainder of the world mourns. She tries to get them to move forward, move past it, but Jihyo can’t help but mourn with them. 

“The movies downtown are open for the weekend,” she says as a greeting. Mina’s eyes are a bit red, and she doesn’t want to say she saw Mina tearing up a bit with her sandwich as her meeting with the remaining members of the Avengers finished. “I think they’re showing those Sergei Parajanov ones you like.”

Mina blinks back tears and laughs. She pushes the plate of the cut-up sandwich in Jihyo’s direction as Jihyo takes the seat across her. There are tons of papers on the desk, and several tablets are strewn about. Mina’s been carrying so much of the Avengers work when both Minji and Bora were also taken away. 

It’s taking a toll on her. Even a stranger who didn’t even know her can tell. 

“Sorry,” she says, even if there’s a small, playful smile on her face reserved for Jihyo and the rest of the team. “Not in the mood.” 

“We need a life.” 

“True,” Mina says, though she gestures to the mess on the table. “But who’s going to all this if we do?” 

Looking away, Jihyo sighs. “It’s hard, I know. I keep telling people I meet to move on, move past it but… I don’t think we’re part of that demographic.” 

“We aren’t part of many demographics, I’d argue.” 

“You’re right.” 

Silence blankets over them and Mina looks at her. When she’s tired, she shows all her emotions. There was a time Jihyo couldn’t ever tell what she was feeling. 

But they’ve known each other for a little over a decade. At this point, Jihyo can read the elusive Black Widow better than anyone. “I did a lot of terrible things, and then I had the shot to clean my ledger with this job. I was alone,” she says, then Mina looks at Jihyo, looks at her straight into her soul. She knows her eyes now. She knows what Mina is, what she’s been through. “Then I wasn’t. I’m doing everything I can to at least get it back, or to pay it forward.” 

Jihyo sighs. She stands to move beside Mina, wrapping an arm around her. The space between them diminished completely with the years they spent together. 

“You know, I think you’re not gonna hear this but,” Jihyo says. “You just have as much good in you. More than a lot of people here. I hope you know that.” 

Mina tears up, and in the quiet of this room, Jihyo lets her.

  
  


Nayeon, the absolute genius she is, finds a solution in the form of the quantum realm. Then they get to work to assemble everyone back and if the world wasn’t heavy with mourning, Jihyo would be a little bit nostalgic. 

The last thing she sees when she goes into the quantum realm is Mina, who smiles at her reassuringly. They have to do this. This has to work. 

(“Hey, after this… can I ask you something?” Jihyo says, biting her lip. Jeongyeon had told her not to chicken out but the rest of the world was in shambles so this definitely can wait after. 

_Just ask her on a date, Hyo. It’ll be fine._

Mina raises an eyebrow. “You can’t ask it now?”

Jihyo shakes her head. Mina, ever understanding, nods. 

The way she takes Jihyo’s hand gently makes Jihyo feel like Mina knows anyway.)

They have to do this. 

Nayeon wears the gauntlet, snaps, and loses her arm. Then everyone joins them. Everyone trickles in. They’d been losing the fight but not any longer. 

“Cap, on your mark.” 

Jihyo feels her heart swell. She feels tears pricking at her eyes. When she turns back to see all their people, Jihyo looks forward to Thanos. “Avengers,” she says, then the silence is deafening. “ _Assemble_!”

Mina is a bit broken in several places at the end of it. For some reason, they’d managed to take the soul stone even without Chaeyoung or Mina dying, but at the last minute, Chaeyoung had saved her despite Mina willingly trying to sacrifice herself. 

She’s barely alive but she still is. Jihyo rushes towards her, carrying her to safety, her heart breaking in her chest. “You can’t die on me, Myoui,” Jihyo tells her. Some of her tears end up on Mina’s kevlar. “We won. You can’t die.” 

Mina doesn’t respond, but she keeps her eyes on Jihyo until she’s whisked away. 

At the end of it, Mina loses half a leg. Nayeon, as well, loses the entirety of her arm. 

But they’re alive, and the other half of the universe is back, all thanks to the two of them. 

(“I’d appreciate it if you don’t call me Luke Skywalker,” Nayeon says. She can build her own bionic arm as soon as she’s out of this. But in the meantime, she should let the stump heal. 

Jihyo laughs, setting some of the gifts on the table. Nayeon’s kid had wanted her aunt cap to deliver the message herself. “Well, now that you’ve mentioned it, I might just call you that. The same way I've been calling Tzuyu that.”) 

Most of her days are spent at Mina’s bedside, waiting for her to recover. 

When she does wake up, Jihyo almost cries. She kisses Mina’s forehead and tells them they’ve won.

-

Nayeon builds Mina the high-tech prosthetics for her leg and in a matter of a few days, Mina walks with it perfectly. 

Jihyo stays at the edge of the room, guiding Mina and slowly letting go of her until she walks. Slow, wobbly, but upright. 

It doesn’t last long because she lands on her behind. 

One of the world’s greatest spies looking absolutely adorable on the floor, laughing and smiling in a way Jihyo wouldn’t have imagined all those years ago when they’d met after she’d thawed from the ice. 

(“Ask her now,” Jeongyeon urges. She's been pushing for them to get together when Jihyo had confided in her about Mina, and what she's been feeling.

She'll always love Jeongyeon. Jeongyeon will always be her first, but she should take up her own advice and move on. “You’ll never know what’ll happen. So ask her.”) 

After all the insane things that _have_ happened, Jihyo takes her chances. 

“So, um, remember that thing I wanted to ask you before we hopped into the quantum realm,” she begins, the blush crawling to her neck already. “I—uh. I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out. To the movies. As, uh, you know, a d—”

“Yes.” 

That pulls Jihyo out of her nervous reverie. “What?”

“Yes, I’ll go on a date with you.” Mina’s smiling that gummy smile she only shares with Jihyo, and she feels like the world builds itself around them when she does. “Honestly, Cap, I would have kissed you if you weren’t old fashioned. The first one doesn't count.” 

Jihyo laughs, scratching the back of her head. “Ah, yes. Can we go for a few dates first?” 

Mina leans a little forward on her other leg, pressing a sweet kiss to Jihyo’s cheek that she feels all the way to her toes. “That’s for being the sweetheart that you’ve been all these years.” 

_All these years,_ Jihyo thinks. Everything feels like they happened yesterday, but also a long time ago. Jihyo doesn’t understand, doesn’t know. 

But what she does know is that she’ll always have Mina with her, by her side, through it all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
